The Champlain Institute

THE CHAMPLAIN INSTITUTE

Summer 2020 at College of the Atlantic

November 3—What’s at Stake?

PROGRAM

WELCOME TO THE 2020 CHAMPLAIN INSTITUTE

We just don’t talk anymore.

And by “we” I mean liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, and often not even factions in the same party—right and far right, centrist left and progressive.

What’s worse is that we also don’t listen—or read, or understand, or seek out opinions and ideas that differ from our own.

It seems that with every news cycle, each side distrusts the other more. We read our journals and papers, scroll through our algorithmically-curated social media feeds, and struggle to understand how anyone could see it any differently. How could they, the other side, get this so wrong? How are they, the other side, going to spin this one?

No issue in American life is immune to fervent partisan reaction: the COVID response, the media, trust in scientists, whether climate change is real, immigration, the scope of the Second Amendment—the list is endless.

Take, for instance, trust in the media. The Pew Research Center, which has been studying political polarization in America for years, found that since late March to early May, “the share of Republicans who view the COVID-19 outbreak as a major threat to the nation’s health dropped nine points, from 52% to 43%, while views on this issue among Democrats increased slightly from 78% to 82%. Democrats are now nearly 40 percentage points more likely than Republicans to consider the coronavirus a major threat to the health of the population.”1

1 pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/03/partisan-differences-over-the-pandemic-response-are-growing That political divide is a deep and growing chasm. But we’re not just becoming more and more partisan. We’re becoming more and more uncivil towards one another and feel more threatened and angry. We’re hunkering down and blocking our ears. Bret Stephens of the New York Times recently wrote: “There is a spirit of ferocious intellectual intolerance sweeping the country… Contrary opinions aren’t just wrong but unworthy of discussion. The range of political views deemed morally unﬁt for publication seems to grow ever wider.”

This intolerance is not only hurting the fabric of civil society, our democratic processes, and any possibility of civil discourse, but it also seems to be hurting us personally. Data from Beyond Conﬂict, an organization that promotes reconciliation in conﬂict areas, show that “Americans feel ‘dehumanised’ by the opposing party—a sentiment often associated with political violence—at roughly the same level as Israelis and Palestinians viewed each other during the Gaza War in 2014.”2

That is shocking.

What can be done?

There are signs of hope, or rather studies in hope. All you need is 526 voters, a long weekend, and a conference center in Dallas. Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy in conjunction with Helena, an NGO that works on seemingly intractable societal problems, and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago designed an historic political experiment called America in One Room. This past September, they gathered a represen- tative sample of the entire American electorate “in all its political, cultur- al, and demographic diversity.”3 Over the course of a long weekend, the participants discussed ﬁve central issues to the 2020 election: healthcare, the economy and taxes, the environment, foreign policy, and immigration.

The executive summary of the results states: “There were dramatic changes of opinion. The most polarizing proposals, whether from the left or the right, generally lost support, and a number of more centrist proposals moved to the foreground. Crucially, proposals that were farther on the right typically

2 economist.com/open-future/2019/03/15/our-politics-fails-us-so-heres-what-to-do 3 cdd.stanford.edu/2019/america-in-one-room/ 4 cdd.stanford.edu/2019/america-in-one-room-results/ lost support from Republicans and proposals that were farther on the left typically lost support from Democrats. It seems our divisions are not immune to deliberation.”4 What’s more going in, only 30% said they thought American Democracy worked well. At the end of three days, that ﬁgure doubled.

Research from More In Common, an advocacy organization devoted to countering extremism, bears these ﬁndings out. As part of its ongoing investigation into the root causes of political polarization, More in Common studied whether Republicans and Democrats could separate perception from reality. On issues including climate change, patriotism, sexual assault, police conduct and more, they asked thousands of Americans what they themselves believed and what they estimated people on the other side believed. Their conclusion? “Americans have a deeply distorted understanding of each other. Overall, Democrats and Republicans imagine almost twice as many of their political opponents hold views they consider ‘extreme’ as they actually do. Even on the most controversial issues in our national debates, Americans are far less divided than most of us think.”5

How do we ﬁx this perception gap?

We need to start talking. We need to start listening. College of the Atlan- tic’s Champlain Institute wants to be part of the solution. Let’s talk about it together.

Lynn Boulger

PS. I cite direct sources for the America in One Room experiment, but do read the NYT article about it, which also has portraits of every participant. It is fascinating. nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/02/upshot/these-526-voters-rep- resent-america.html

5 perceptiongap.us/

The 2020 Champlain Institute November 3—What’s at Stake? Monday, July 27 through Friday, July 31

The Champlain Institute is a week-long ideas forum and exchange. Each summer, COA hosts leaders from around the country and the world to share their expertise on press- ing issues of our time. This year, we explore the future of US diplomacy, climate change policy, income inequality, national security, the Second Amendment, the Supreme Court, coronavirus, and other issues that will be critical national topics leading up to the presidential elections in November. To register, visit www.coa.edu/ciregister. SCHEDULE

MONDAY, JULY 27 5:00 PM An Evening with Hillary Rodham Clinton

Healthcare, national security, the environment, America’s leadership role in the world, and the state of our diplomatic corps are all issues that will be affected by the decisions we make on November 3. Join 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as she discusses with historian Ted Widmer the consequences before us as we vote in the next election.

Introduced by: Ambassador Philip Lader

TUESDAY, JULY 28 9:30 AM Addressing National Threats and Emergencies

COVID-19 is the latest disaster to challenge the US government, US businesses, and the lives of every American. National threats and emergencies range from climate change, cyber threats, and terrorism to natural disasters and pandemics. How well does the US government prioritize and prepare for these risks and how well do they respond when there is an emergency? What role and responsibilities do state and local governments and the private sector have in preparing for these challenges? These topics will be the focus of discussion between Nathaniel Fogg, former Deputy Chief Operating Ofﬁcer and Counselor to the Administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Nick Dowling, founder and CEO of IDS Internation- al, a ﬁrm that helps the US government handle complex national security challenges ranging from cyber warfare to COVID-19.

Introduced by: Arthur Martinez

TUESDAY, JULY 28 11:00 AM How to Unite the United States—Lessons from Lincoln

Ted Widmer’s new book, Lincoln on the Verge, tells the story of America’s greatest president and the obstacles he overcame even before he could take the oath of ofﬁce and deliver his inaugural address. Widmer will talk with COA professor Jamie McKown, also a Lincoln scholar, about similarities and differences between Lincoln’s divided country and ours today.

Introduced by: Philip Kunhardt TUESDAY, JULY 28 5:00 PM Call Me American

Abdi Nor Iftin was five when the civil war began in Somalia. As the years went on, amidst the famine and the daily shelling of the war, he went to school and scrambled to make money to help his family. Evading conscription by al-Shabaab while secretly filing stories for NPR under penalty of death, he stayed in Somalia until he had no choice but to flee to Kenya. While there, he had an incredible stroke of luck in 2014: he won the Diversity Visa Lottery. His story was chronicled on This American Life: “Abdi and the Golden Ticket”. Nor Iftin will talk with Frances Stead Sellers, senior writer on the America desk at the Washington Post, about immigration, being a refugee, and his life in America.

Introduced by: Ambassador William Eacho

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29 9:30AM Extremism in the 21st Century

September 11, 2001 ushered in the threat of violent extremism in this century. Since then, we have not only seen a two decade long war on jihadist terrorism, but the rise of extremist politics in Western democracies. White nationalism on the right, social- ism on the left, and hostility to the “establishment” are increasingly part of our politics. Join us for a talk on the challenge of extremism with Jasmine El-Gamal, Atlantic Council senior fellow and former Middle East advisor at the Department of Defense, and Nick Dowling, founder and CEO of IDS International.

Introduced by: Lynn Boulger

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29 5:00 PM An Evening with Kay C. James

What are the principles of conservative thought and how do they shape policy in America today? What are the main differences between progressives and conservatives? The Heritage Foundation is dedicated to formulating and promoting conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Join Kay C. James, president of the Heritage Foundation, for a talk on the priorities of America’s premier conservative think tank with Philip Lader, cofounder of Renais- sance Weekends and former Ambassador to the Court of Saint James’s.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29 6:15 PM The Reach of History

We welcome back Former US Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell to the Champlain Institute for a special guest appearance. He will give a 30–minute talk on the historical roots of several of the critical challenges facing our country today: racial justice, immigration, the pandemic, globalization, and climate change. He will assess the ability of the US to deal with these challenges, especially in this time of widespread distress over the pandemic and the intense polarization that exists in American politics.

THURSDAY, JULY 30 9:30 AM How We Eat Now

The effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been nothing less than catastrophic for the independent restaurants that make up two-thirds of the American dining land- scape, from dockside lobster shacks to ﬁne dining emporia, and those effects have cascaded down on farmers and ﬁshermen, on laundry services, and wine wholesalers. At the same time, millions of Americans have spent months honing home-cooking skills while under quarantine or lockdown, sometimes under severe conditions of food insecurity. What happens now? Sam Sifton, an assistant managing editor of The New York Times, returns to the Champlain Institute to survey the damage and talk with Frances Stead Sellers, senior writer at the Washington Post’s America desk, about the future of food in the United States.

Introduced by: Ted Widmer

THURSDAY, JULY 30 11:00 AM The Struggle for America

Evangelicals have, in many ways, deﬁned the nation. Constituting 25% of the Amer- ican population, they have shaped our culture and our politics. In 2016, they voted overwhelmingly for Trump, but they are not monolithic in their politics, ranging from Tea Party supporters to social reformers. What will they do in November and why does it matter? Join activist, environmentalist, and novelist Roxana Robinson and Frances FitzGerald, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and author of The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America.

Introduced by: R. Marie Grifﬁth THURSDAY, JULY 30 5:00 PM A More or Less Perfect Union

Freedom of speech, religion, press, and assembly, the Second Amendment, eminent domain, the separation of powers, and civil rights are some of the topics covered in A More or Less Perfect Union, a PBS series hosted by Judge Douglas Ginsburg. A constitutional expert with thirty years of experience on the Federal Court of Appeals in Wash- ington, DC, Ginsburg will talk with Alan Crain, chairman of the Houston Committee on Foreign Relations about the law “that governs those who govern us”—the American Constitution.

Introduced by: Ambassador C. Boyden Gray

FRIDAY, JULY 31 9:30 AM Unbreaking America

Americans are profoundly troubled about the condition of our democracy. According to a 2017 Washington Post —University of Maryland poll, 71% agree that our political system has reached “a dangerous low point” and just under two-thirds of Ameri- cans now believe the US political system is dysfunctional. There is almost universal agreement (96%) that money in politics is a major driver of government dysfunction. RepresentUs was founded to fix our political system. The post-partisan organization brings together conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between to pass laws that stop political bribery, end secret money, and fix our broken elections. Josh Silver, founder and director of RepresentUs, will discuss with Will Thorndike, author of The Outsiders, how he believes we can fix our democracy so that our representatives rep- resent us. He will highlight new efforts to pass comprehensive vote-at-home policies that ensure safety amidst the pandemic while increasing voter participation.

Introduced by: Ted Widmer

FRIDAY, JULY 31 5:00 PM Society at a Tipping Point: Race, Class & the Way Forward

On May 25, George Floyd died at the hands of the Minneapolis police—and the world has not been the same since. COVID-isolated for months, tens of thousands of people ﬂooded the streets of cities and towns all over America to protest police brutality, systemic racism, and white supremacy. In Five Days, his new book about the Baltimore riots in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray, Wes Moore examines the warning signs, analyzes the consequences, and calls out the root causes of violence and intergenera- tional poverty. Moore, who is CEO of Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty forces in the nation, will talk about solutions that can help to restore America’s promise of opportunity for all. SPEAKER BIOS

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent four decades in public service as an advocate, attorney, First Lady, US Senator, US Secretary of State, and presidential candidate.

Hillary Clinton was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 26, 1947. After graduating from Wellesley College and Yale Law School, she began her life-long work on behalf of children and families by joining the Children’s Defense Fund. Credit: Barbara Kinney

In 1974, she moved to Arkansas, where she married Bill Clinton and became a successful attorney while also raising their daughter, Chelsea.

As First Lady of the United States, from 1993 to 2001, Hillary Clinton championed health care for all Americans and led successful bipartisan efforts to improve the adoption and foster care systems, reduce teen pregnancy, and create the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

In 2000, Clinton made history as the first First Lady elected to the United States Senate, and the first woman elected to statewide office in New York. As Senator, she worked across party lines to expand economic opportunity and access to quality, affordable health care. After September 11, 2001, she helped to rebuild New York and provide health care for first responders.

In 2007, she began her historic campaign for president, winning 18 million votes and becoming the ﬁrst woman to ever win a presidential primary or caucus state.

In her four years as America’s chief diplomat and the President’s principal foreign policy adviser, Clinton led the effort to restore America’s leadership in the world. She negotiated a cease-ﬁre in Gaza that defended Israel’s security and headed off another war in the Middle East, mobilized an international coalition to impose crippling sanctions against Iran, and championed human rights around the world, as she has her entire career.

In 2016, Clinton made history again by becoming the ﬁrst woman nominated for president by a major US political party. As the Democratic candidate for president, she campaigned on a vision of America that is “stronger together” and an agenda to make our economy work for everyone, not just those at the top, earning the support of nearly 66 million Americans.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the author of eight best-selling books, including her campaign memoir, What Happened (2017), and The Book of Gutsy Women (2019), with Chelsea Clinton.

She and President Clinton reside in New York, have one daughter, Chelsea, and are the proud grandparents of Charlotte, Aidan, and Jasper.

MONDAY, JULY 27 5:00 PM An Evening with Hillary Rodham Clinton Alan Crain

Alan Crain teaches at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. He has lectured at Stanford Law School, Penn State, Duke, University of Texas, and Tufts University. He was an adjunct professor of international law for ten years at the University of Houston. He is the chairman of the Houston Committee on Foreign Relations and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

He serves on the boards of directors of a number of public and private companies, as Credit: Houston Human Rights First well as several education and human rights focused non-proﬁts. He is also an independent arbitrator, having served on more than 100 arbitration tribunals.

Crain began his career with a law ﬁrm in Washington, DC, and has been general counsel of three Fortune 500 multinationals, operating in over 100 countries, in the ﬁelds of energy, technology, and manufacturing. He has had global responsibility for legal affairs, ethics and compliance, risk management, and government relations. He holds BS and MS degrees in Engineering, a MBA, and a JD. He has been admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Texas, and before several Federal Courts, including the US Supreme Court.

THURSDAY, JULY 30 5:00 PM A More or Less Perfect Union Nick Dowling

Over the past two decades, Nick Dowling’s career has focused on stability operations and interagency coordination in both the public and private sectors. In his government service, Dowling worked to end the Balkan wars. He was Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council (NSC), where he coordinated Bosnia and Kosovo policy. Dowling has also worked as a defense fellow in the Ofﬁce of the Secretary of Defense, as a senior fellow at the National Defense University, and as a policy advisor for two presidential campaigns and a US Senate campaign.

Over the past fifteen years, Dowling has been the CEO of IDS International, a firm that helps the US government handle conflict and complexity in the 21st century. IDS trains and supports US military and diplomatic efforts around the world on issues ranging from cyber warfare to security assistance.

TUESDAY, JULY 28 9:30 AM Addressing National Threats and Emergencies

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29 9:30AM Extremism in the 21st Century Jasmine M. El-Gamal

Jasmine M. El-Gamal is a nonresident senior fellow with the Middle East program at the Atlantic Council, where she focuses primarily on US foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as the Syria conﬂict and its implications for the region, Europe, and the United States.

El-Gamal served as a Middle East advisor to the United States Department of Defense from 2008-2015, where she handled the Iraq, Lebanon and Syria portfolios. During her tenure, she covered issues related to the Arab Spring, ISIS, and Guantanamo Bay, among Credit: Duco Experts others. She also served as the Acting Chief of Staff for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy and as Special Assistant for National Security to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29 9:30AM Extremism in the 21st Century Frances FitzGerald

Frances FitzGerald is a journalist and author. She has written six books and contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New York Times magazine, Esquire, Architectural Digest, and other publications. Her ﬁrst book, Fire in the Lake: the Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam (1972) received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bancroft Prize for history.

FitzGerald graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1962 with a BA in Middle Eastern History. She serves on the boards of Credit: Peter Murphy for Christianity Today directors of the Alicia Patterson Foundation, The Nation, and the Citizens Committee for New York City. She was president of the PEN American Center and The Society of American Historians, and served on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harvard Board of Overseers. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

FitzGerald is married to the journalist and author, Jim Sterba, and lives in New York City.

THURSDAY, JULY 30 11:00 AM The Struggle for America Nathaniel Fogg

Nat Fogg is a private investor and trusted advisor in the defense and government services market with over 20 years of relevant experience. He has led over 50 engagements with corporate and private equity clients with 25 successfully closed deals totaling $5B in enterprise value.

Most recently, Fogg was an advisor to A&M Capital Partners and subsequently SVP for mergers & acquisitions and corporate development at Centerra Group, a portfolio company of A&M Capital, which was acquired by Apollo in April of 2017. Prior to joining Centerra, Fogg was a partner and founding member of the Chertoff Group, a boutique advisory and M&A ﬁrm specializing in national security markets. He also served in the Department of Homeland Security during the Bush 43 administration as the Deputy Chief Operating Ofﬁcer at FEMA, helping to restore the agency’s reputation and image in a post-Hurricane Katrina environment.

Fogg began his career as an officer in the US Navy, serving on various ships in the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets as a surface warfare officer. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA from Yale University. Fogg remains a senior advisor to the Chertoff Group and resides in Palm Beach, Florida.

TUESDAY, JULY 28 9:30 AM Addressing National Threats and Emergencies Douglas Ginsburg

Douglas H. Ginsburg is a Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to which he was appointed by President Reagan in 1986. He is also a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he teaches courses in antitrust and jurisprudence, and a visiting professor at University College London, Faculty of Laws. Before joining the bench, he was a professor at Harvard Law School and then Assistant Attorney General of the United States for Antitrust.

Judge Ginsburg is a graduate of Cornell University and of the University of Chicago Law School. He serves on the advisory boards of many journals and academic centers, including: the Supreme Court Economic Review; the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy; the University of Chicago Law Review; and, at University College London, both the Centre for Law, Economics and Society and the Jevons Institute for Competition Law and Economics.

He is the author or co-author of many books and articles, including Originalism and Economic Analysis: Two Case Studies of Consistency and Coherence in Supreme Court Decision Making and On Constitutionalism. Judge Ginsburg recently completed a three- part series on the Constitution—A More or Less Perfect Union—being broadcast on PBS stations this spring.

THURSDAY, JULY 30 5:00 PM A More or Less Perfect Union Abdi Nor Iftin

Abdi Nor Iftin is an author, radio journalist, refugee advocate, and interpreter. In his memoir, Call Me American (2018), Nor Iftin recounts his harrowing, extraordinary, and uplifting journey from Somalia, talking about immigration, being a refugee, and his new life in America. He was five when the civil war in Somalia began and attended a madrassa (school) while providing for his family. Amidst the famine and the daily shelling of the war, he had one escape: American movies and music. He learned about America, taught himself English (from watching those American Credit: Michael Lionstar movies), and began to dream of a life in the United States. Evading conscription by al-Shabaab while secretly filing stories for NPR under penalty of death, he stayed in Somalia until he had no choice but to flee to Kenya. While there, he had an incredible stroke of luck, and he won the Diversity Visa Lottery in 2014. His story was chronicled on “This American Life: Abdi and the Golden Ticket” .

Nor Iftin travels and speaks throughout the US to champion the cause of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). When he became an American citizen this year, Senator Angus King attended his naturalization ceremony. He says he’s liberated now that he is an American citizen. He has a voice in this country; he is ﬁnally able to vote for the ﬁrst time.

TUESDAY, JULY 28 5:00 PM Call Me American Kay C. James

Kay C. James is no stranger to public policy and leadership. She has been making conservative solutions a reality in all levels of government and academia for over thirty years.

She has worked at the local, state, and federal levels of government in the administrations of former President George H.W. Bush, former Virginia Governor George Allen, and former President George W. Bush, and she has also served dozens of organizations in the corporate and non-proﬁt arenas. She served on the 2016 Presidential Transition Team, and currently serves on the National Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission to which she was appointed by President Donald Trump. In December 2017, she was unanimously elected by The Heritage Foundation’s Board of Trustees to be Heritage’s new president. She brings a wealth of experience to this position, having served on the Heritage Board from 2005 to 2018. Since becoming president of Heritage, James has led the way in growing the conservative movement, expanding Heritage’s scale and scope, as well as establishing processes and plans that will keep the organization thriving for generations to come.

James is also the founder and has served as the president of The Gloucester Institute, an organization dedicated to training and nurturing leaders in minority communities. She is a graduate of Hampton University, the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, and a best-selling author. Most importantly, she is married to Charles James Sr. and is the proud mother of three and grandmother of ﬁve.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29 5:00 PM An Evening with Kay C. James Philip Lader

Philip Lader, former US Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, was chairman of WPP plc. He served in President Clinton’s Cabinet while Administrator of the US Small Business Administration, and was White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Assistant to the President, and Deputy Director of the Ofﬁce of Management & Budget. He is the former president of universities in South Carolina and Australia and Sea Pines Company, as well as executive vice president of America’s then-largest private landowner. Now a senior Credit: Robert Severi adviser to Morgan Stanley Investment Banking and Palantir Corporation and trustee of RAND Corporation and several foundations, he has served on the boards of Lloyds of London, Marathon Oil, AMC Entertainment, Canary Wharf, AES, British Museum, American Red Cross, Smithsonian Museum of American History, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Atlantic Council, and several banks and universities.

Educated at Duke, Michigan, Oxford, and Harvard Law School, Lader is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was president of Business Executives for National Security, and has been awarded honorary doctorates by 14 universities. He and his wife, Linda, a Presbyterian minister, co-founded and continue to host Renaissance Weekends, the non-partisan retreats for innovative leaders.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29 5:00 PM An Evening with Kay C. James Jamie McKown

Jamie McKown is the James Russell Wiggins Chair in Government and Polity at College of the Atlantic. He teaches courses in political science, rhetoric, critical theory, and American history. His research interests lie at the intersection between political science, rhetorical criticism, critical theory, and American political history. He is currently completing a project on Lincoln’s use of conspiracy rhetoric in the years before his election to the presidency. In addition, he is working on a long-term project to recover the works of inﬂuential Michigan women’s suffrage Credit: Jason P. Smith activist and Republican operative Adelle Hazlett.

Before coming to COA, McKown was a professor at the College of Charleston where he taught classes in rhetoric, political communication, and American campaign history. He has also taught at Northwestern University and Loyola University in Chicago. He spent a number of years as a coach for the Emory University debate team and successfully coached three different teams to national intercollegiate championship titles. Based on these efforts he was awarded the Warren Aiken Outstanding Alumni Award by Emory in 2000. McKown holds a BA in Political Science from Emory University, an MA in Political Communication from Georgia State University, and a PhD in Rhetoric from Northwestern University.

TUESDAY, JULY 28 11:00 AM How to Unite the United States—Lessons from Lincoln George J. Mitchell

Senator George Mitchell was appointed to the United States Senate in 1980 to complete the unexpired term of Maine Senator Edmund S. Muskie, who resigned to become Secretary of State. He was elected to a full term in the Senate in 1982 in a stunning come-from-behind victory. After trailing in public opinion polls by 36 points, Senator Mitchell rallied to win the election, receiving 61% of the votes cast. Senator Mitchell went on to an illustrious career in the Senate spanning 15 years.

In 1988, he was reelected with 81 percent of the vote, the largest margin in Maine history. He left the Senate in 1995 as the Senate majority leader, a position he had held since January 1989.

In 1995, Mitchell served as a special advisor to President Bill Clinton on Ireland, and from 1996 to 2000 he served as the independent chairman of the Northern Ireland peace talks. Under his leadership, the Good Friday Agreement, an historic accord ending decades of conﬂict, was agreed to by the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom and the political parties of Northern Ireland.

In 2000 and 2001, at the request of President Clinton, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Chairman Yasser Arafat, Senator Mitchell served as chairman of an international fact-ﬁnding committee on violence in the Middle East. The committee’s recommendation, widely known as The Mitchell Report, was endorsed by the Bush administration, the European Union, and by many other governments.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29 6:15 PM The Reach of History Wes Moore

Wes Moore is the CEO of Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty forces in the nation. He is a bestselling author, a combat veteran, and a social entrepreneur.

Moore’s ﬁrst book, The Other Wes Moore (2010), a perennial New York Times bestseller, captured the nation’s attention on the ﬁne line between success and failure in our communities and in ourselves. That story has been optioned by executive producer Oprah Winfrey and HBO to be made into a movie. He is also the author of the bestselling books The Work (2015), Credit: Jason P. Smith Discovering Wes Moore (2012), and This Way Home (2015).

Moore’s latest book, Five Days (2020), explores the uprisings in Baltimore in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody through a kaleidoscope of perspectives and examines critical questions about the deeper causes of violence and poverty.

Moore grew up in Baltimore and the Bronx, where he was raised by a single mom. Despite childhood challenges, he graduated Phi Theta Kappa from Valley Forge Military College in 1998 and Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University in 2001. He earned an MLitt in International Relations from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 2004. Moore then served as a captain and paratrooper with the US Army’s 82nd airborne, including a combat deployment to Afghanistan. He later served as a White House fellow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Before becoming CEO at Robin Hood, Moore was the founder and CEO at BridgeEdu, an innovative tech platform based in Baltimore addressing the college completion and job placement crisis by reinventing freshman year for underserved students. BridgeEdu was acquired by Edquity, a Brooklyn-based student ﬁnancial success and emergency aid ﬁrm, in June 2019.

Moore has also worked in ﬁnance as an investment banker with Deutsche Bank in London and with Citigroup in New York.

Moore has served on numerous nonproﬁt and social-impact boards and is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The joy of Moore’s life are his two children and his wife, Dawn.

FRIDAY, JULY 31 5:00 PM Society at a Tipping Point: Race, Class & the Way Forward Roxana Robinson

Roxana Robinson is the author of ten books— six novels, three collections of short stories, and a biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. Four of these were chosen as New York Times Notable Books, two as New York Times Editors’ Choices.

Her ﬁction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Best American Short Stories, Tin House, and elsewhere. Her work has been widely anthologized and broadcast on NPR. Her books have been published in England, France, Germany, Holland, and Spain. Robinson Credit: Beowulf Sheehan is a scholar of American paintings and an environmentalist, and her essays, criticism, and Op-Eds have appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, Bookforum, The Nation, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of many awards, the most recent the Barnes & Noble “Writers for Writers” Award, from Poets & Writers.

Her novels include Dawson’s Fall (2019), Sparta (2013), Cost (2008), and Sweetwater (2003).

THURSDAY, JULY 30 11:00 AM The Struggle for America Frances Stead Sellers

Frances Stead Sellers is a senior writer at the Washington Post. She covered the 2016 presidential campaign, writing about the leading candidates and key ﬁgures in the Trump administration, and was a member of the team that produced the 2016 best seller Trump Revealed: The Definitive Biography of the 45th President (2017).

Sellers has been a senior editor in charge of several sections of the Post, including the signature daily section Style, which focuses on political proﬁles, personalities, arts, and ideas. Credit: Capital Business

Sellers holds a BA in Modern Languages from Oxford University and an MA in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a sought-after commentator on American politics and culture for US and British radio and TV.

TUESDAY, JULY 28 5:00 PM Call Me American Sam Sifton

Sam Sifton is an assistant managing editor of The New York Times, overseeing the culture and lifestyle sections, the founding editor of NYT Cooking, and a columnist for The New York Times Magazine. He has also served as the national editor, the restaurant critic, and culture editor. Sifton is the author of See You on Sunday: A Cookbook for Family and Friends (2020) and Thanksgiving: How to Cook It Well: A Cookbook (2012).

Sifton graduated magna cum laude from Credit: Brendan McCarthy Harvard College with an AB in History and Literature in 1988. He began his journalism career as assistant editor for American Heritage Magazine in 1988. From 1990 to 1994, he taught social studies in the New York City public school system. Sifton held a number of positions at the weekly New York Press during his tenure there from 1990 to 1998, including restaurant critic, contributing editor, senior editor, media critic and managing editor. Sifton was a founding editor of Talk (magazine) in 1998.

THURSDAY, JULY 30 9:30 AM How We Eat Now Josh Silver

Josh Silver is the founder and director of RepresentUs, a post-partisan, nonprofit organization that is advancing campaign finance and election reforms across the nation. RepresentUs has built one of the largest grassroots and social media communities in the democracy reform field, with a focus on how to leverage systemic change through mass movements that traverse diverse political ideologies.

Silver is also co-founder and former CEO of Free Press, an advocacy group that promotes critical journalism and Internet openness. He served as campaign manager of the successful 1998 “Clean Elections” ballot measure in Arizona. He publishes widely on democracy, media, election, campaign ﬁnance, and a range of other public policy issues.

FRIDAY, JULY 31 9:30 AM Unbreaking America Will Thorndike

Will N. Thorndike founded Housatonic Partners in Boston in 1994, a leading middle market private equity ﬁrm with ofﬁces in Boston and San Francisco, and has been managing director since that time.

Thorndike is a graduate of Harvard College and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a director of Carillon Assisted Living LLC, CONSOL Energy Inc (Chair, NYSE: CNX), Lincoln Peak Holding LLC, OASIS Group Ltd, QMC International LLC, and ZircoDATA. He is also a trustee of The Stanford Business School Trust, WGBH, and College of the Atlantic, as well as a founding partner at FARM, a social impact investing collaborative. He is the author of The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success (2012).

FRIDAY, JULY 31 9:30 AM Unbreaking America Ted Widmer

Ted Widmer is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and distinguished lecturer at the Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York. Widmer served as a speechwriter and senior advisor to former President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001, and as a senior advisor to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from 2012 to 2013. He was formerly the director of The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress and the director of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

Widmer’s books include Lincoln on the Verge (2020), Martin Van Buren (2005); Campaigns: A Century of Presidential Races (with Alan Brinkley, 2001); and Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City (1999). Widmer is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The New York Observer, Politico, The Boston Globe, and The American Scholar.

MONDAY, JULY 27 5:00 PM An Evening with Hillary Rodham Clinton

TUESDAY, JULY 28 11:00 AM How to Unite the United States—Lessons from Lincoln INTRODUCERS

Ambassador William Carlton Eacho III is the former United States Ambassador to Austria from 2009 to 2013. Eacho was nominated by President Barack Obama in June 2009, and was conﬁrmed by the US Senate and sworn in during August 2009. Eacho is presently a co-founder of The Partnership for Responsible Growth, a bipartisan organization advocating for US legislation for revenue-neutral fees on carbon.

In 2014, Eacho became a visiting professor of the practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. In 2013, he joined the Center for Transatlantic Relations as a distinguished fellow, and was visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, with an expertise in global energy, environment, and security issues. He formerly served on the Energy and Security Task Force of the International Peace Institute.

Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy ﬁrm in Washington, DC, focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.

Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, ﬁrst as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, and during the George H.W. Bush administration, he was in charge of judicial selection. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, he served as US Ambassador to the European Union and US Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.

Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law ﬁrm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School, and is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.

Gray earned his AB magna cum laude from Harvard and his JD with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served in the United States Marine Corps and, after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Arthur C. Martinez is retired chairman, president, and CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Company. Previously, Martinez was the vice chairman of Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City and a member of that company’s board of directors, group chief executive for the retail division of BATUS, Inc. and a member of the BATUS board, and held several positions with Saks, including executive vice president for administration, senior vice president, and CFO. He also served as executive chairman of Abercrombie & Fitch, as non-executive chairman of HSNi, Inc., and as a member of the supervisory board and chairman of ABN AMRO Holding, N.V.

Martinez received a BS from Polytechnic University and an MBA from Harvard University, and is the 1999 recipient of Harvard’s Alumni Achievement Award, the school’s highest honor. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Notre Dame in 1997 and an honorary Doctor of Engineering from Polytechnic University in 2008. He has received many awards throughout his career, including CEO of the Year in 1996 by Financial World magazine, Business Statesman of the Year in 1997 by the Harvard Business School Club of Chicago and in 1998, he received the National Retail Federation’s Gold Medal for Excellence in Retailing.

He is currently a trustee of The Maine Coast Heritage Trust and the Norton Museum of Art, and serves as chairman of the board of trustees of Greenwich Hospital, and is a life trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Northwestern University. He is the author of The Hard Road to the Softer Side (2001).

R. Marie Griffith is the John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and the current director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and the editor of the Center’s journal, Religion & Politics. Her research focuses on American Christianity, including the changing proﬁle of American evangelicals and ongoing conﬂicts over gender, sexuality, and marriage.

Grifﬁth has a BA in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia and a PhD in the study of religion from Harvard University. Before moving to Washington University in 2011, she served as professor of religion and director of the women and gender studies program at Princeton University, where she was awarded the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; and later as the John A. Bartlett Professor of New England Church History at Harvard. In 2015, she was appointed a distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.

Grifﬁth is the author of Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics (2017), Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (2004), and God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission (1997). Philip B. Kunhardt III is a COA alumnus, trustee emeritus, and recently retired distinguished scholar in residence in the humanities at New York University. Kunhardt, a Lincoln scholar, taught history and biography in NYU’s College of Arts and Science and before that was a Bard Center fellow at Bard College.

He has co-authored six books, including The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln (2015), Looking for Lincoln (2008), and The American President (1999), and has written and co-produced historical documentaries for PBS, ABC, HBO, Discovery, and other networks. He was the founding director of The Center for the Study of Transformative Lives, which he established at NYU in 2011. Under his directorship the Center sponsored research, teaching, and education centering on the lives of exemplary individuals whose dedication, genius, and moral vision helped shape the course of human events. FURTHER READING, VIEWING, AND THINKING:

» Moore, Wes. The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates. New York: Spiegel & Grau Trade Paperbacks, 2011.

» Moore, Wes and Green, Erica. L. Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City. New York: One World, 2020.

» ‘What it means to be an American’: Abraham Lincoln and a nation divided. An interview with Ted Widmer by Martin Pengelly of The Guardian about his “book about a time of national crisis, in a time of national crisis.”

» “Why Evangelicals Support Trump.” A New York Times article by Frances FitzGerald who reviews two recent books that address why 81% of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, given “his ﬂouting of their traditional values.”

» Pew Research Survey: White Evangelicals See Trump As ‘Honest’ And ‘Morally Up- standing’. News article on NPR’s Morning Edition.

» Divided We Fall. A 10-minute video featuring actor Michael Douglas explaining the importance of getting money out of politics, and how we can “unbreak” American Democracy.

» Late Eight State Kentucky Stalling on Vote by Mail. An article by Josh Silver on the importance of voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.

» Cooking During COVID-19: Family Meals And Fantasies Of Future Dinner Parties. Fresh Air podcast with Sam Sifton.

» If the Civil Rights Movement had a home, it was here. An article about Holly Knoll, the stately manor which now serves as headquarters of the Gloucester Institute, which Kay C. James founded.

» Is Arab Unity Dead? An article by Jasmine El-Gamal that argues the current administration’s disdain for multilateralism makes it likely that Arab governments will continue cooperating with regional allies on key issues rather than trying to reach a broader consensus.

» Why are we preparing to ﬁght the wrong war—again? An article by Nick Dowling on how the Pentagon under both Democratic and Republican presidents fails to prepare our troops for “asymmetric” and “irregular warfare” that US soldiers have been ﬁght- ing for over ten years.

» Women Thought Leaders: Kay C. James on PBS’ To the Contrary. A televised interview with Kay James just after she was appointed president of the Heritage Foundation.

» Somali Refugee Abdi Nor Iftin: ‘I am here to make America great.’ An interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday with Lulu Garcia-Navarro. » A More or Less Perfect Union. A three-part, three-hour series looks at past, present and future struggles for liberty through the lens of the US Constitution hosted by Judge Douglas Ginsburg.

» Conservative Consensus Yet: Douglas Ginsburg, Brett Kavanaugh, and Diane Sykes on the Second Amendment. 2012 article in the Federalist Society.

» “For the ﬁrst time, U.S. resettles fewer refugees than the rest of the world.” Pew Research Center.

» Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States. Migration Policy Institute, March 14, 2019.

» From Here. (Formerly titled With Wings and Roots) A movie by Christina Antona- kos-Wallace.

» George J. Borjas, Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy. (Princeton University Press, 1999.)

» George J. Borjas, Immigration Economics. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016.)

» The U.S. Asylum System in Crisis. Migration Policy Institute, September 2018.

» Most US Manufacturing Jobs Lost to Technology, Not Trade. Financial Times, Decem- ber 2, 2016.

» This Map Shows Where in the World the U.S. Military Is Combating Terrorism.Smith- sonian, January 2019 Data drawn from the Costs of War project at Brown University.

» Terrorism Prosecution Database. Center for National Security, Fordham Univerity.

» Proxy Violence in the Arab Region and Beyond. Carnegie Foundation Grant Project at the Center for National Security, Fordham University.

» Wealth Inequality of the United States. Inequality.org.

» The Racial Wealth Divide Has Grown over Three Decades. Inequality.org.

» If a Wealth Tax Is Such a Good Idea, Why Did Europe Kill Theirs? NPR (February 26, 2019).

» The Richest 10% of Americans Now Own 84% of All Stocks. MONEY (December 19, 2017).

» Dark Money, and Secret Spending in the States. Brennan Center for Justice.

» It’s time for liberals to get over Citizens United. Vox, Scott Castleton, May 2018.

» Meet the Framers. PBS series with Judge Douglas Ginsburg in conversations with the Founding Fathers of our Constitution (videos and podcasts).

» Voices of Our Republic: Exploring the Constitution with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Alan Dershowitz, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ron Chernow, and Many More. Edited by Douglas H. Ginsburg. NOTES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Ted Widmer, who helped frame this years theme and who is a great resource for speakers, con- nections, and ideas. His friendship is valued and appreciated more than words can say.

Thank you to Nick Dowling, who helped recruit participants this and previous years of the Institute.

Thanks to all those who ﬁll out the survey! Your feedback continuously improves this ideas festival. We appreciate every single comment.

Thanks to all the people who open their homes to our speakers! Your in-kind donation makes the speakers’ experience so homey and also allows the College to keep expenses low.

Thank you to those who give to The Institute and COA. Every gift—large or small—supports our mission of being an intellectual hub for the island, the region, and beyond.

Thanks as ever to Judith Goldstein and Will Thorndike, whose idea it was to start a week-long curated colloquy at COA. We consider them the founding parents of the Champlain Insti- tute and are forever grateful for their help over all the years. The 2020 Champlain Institute is sponsored by:

If you or your company would like to sponsor the Champlain Institute, please contact Wes Norton at 207-801-5627.